Research and Teaching Interests

Dr. Yang has dedicated most of his career to the development of renewable energy technologies with particular emphasis on production of biofuels and chemicals from cellulosic biomass feedstocks and other sustainable resources. His current research interests lie in areas of pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and novel pathways that accelerate commercial application of biomass processing to cellulosic and lignin fuels and chemicals.

My Research In the News

Back in 2016, researchers at Washington State University Tri-Cities landed a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant to explore the market potential of their biojet fuel research. The team had successfully demonstrated a new, water-based process for deconstructing and recovering lignin from biomass and converting it into jet fuel-range hydrocarbons. These could be certified as jet fuel in the future. Lignin, a polymer that makes plants woody and rigid, is a waste product in the biofuels production process.

Bin Yang, WSU Tri-Cities associate professor of biological systems engineering and principal investigator for the grant, holds a patent on the process.